announcement of his death. Very good. Send it, please. But I
must dress at once. The funeral service will begin immediately."

"Doctor! Is the doctor here?" an anxious voice sounded in the
corridor.

"I am coming! What is it?"

"Please come quick, Edouard Vicentevitch!" Yakov called him. "The
lady is very ill downstairs; Anna Iurievna, the general's daughter!
I was out to order the flowers; I come back, and see the lady lying
in a faint in the entrance. She had just arrived, and asked; and
they answered her that he was dead, without the slightest
preparation! And she could not bear it, and fainted."

Yakov said all this as they went.

"Actress!" angrily thought Olga Vseslavovna. And immediately she
added mentally, "Well, she may stand on her head now, it is all the
same to me!"


IV


Whether it was all the same to her or not, the deep despair of the
daughter, who had not been in time to bid her father farewell, had
not been in time to receive his blessing, after many years of
anger, which had borne heavily on the head of the blameless young
woman, was so evidently sincere, and produced such a deep